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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26717791">All That is Visible</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minus_Ultra/pseuds/Minus_Ultra'>Minus_Ultra</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron 2.0</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Backstory, Domestic, Encom trio, Encom trio shenanigans, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Flynn being Flynn, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Lora does SCIENCE, Loss, Philosophy, The backstory of the Laser, Time Passing, Walter Gibbs is a rambling genius, being a woman in computational physics in the 60s-80s is hard, but worth it bc science</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:48:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26717791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minus_Ultra/pseuds/Minus_Ultra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lora Baines-Bradley tells her own story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lora Baines-Bradley &amp; Jethro "Jet" Bradley, Lora Baines-Bradley &amp; Walter Gibbs, Lora Baines-Bradley &amp; Yori, Lora Baines-Bradley/Alan Bradley, Lora Baines-Bradley/Kevin Flynn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. when we meet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> Reach me down my Tycho Brahé,—I would know him when we meet, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how </em>
</p><p>
  <em> We are working to completion, working on from then till now. </em>
</p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>I’m alone again, lost in the sky. I should be writing queue cards, but I can’t chain my mind down. It wanders up with the soft night wind, wandering back to the moon and the stars, back across the years, as the rest of me sits here, alone.</p><p>I’ve done a lot of things on my own. And I’m okay with that, you know. I have never been a person who <em> needed </em>other people to get by.</p><p>I’ve been on my own for most of my life; see, before I was even four months old, the person my mother married ran away. Never heard from him again; no one did. It was the start, the start of my life, the start of a theme I wrapped around me like a dark and glittering cape. I was going to make it, and I was going to make it alone. I didn’t need them. I had my books and my thoughts and the night sky. Most nights, I had the moon.</p><p>The moon? Yes! Let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt that the moon was looking at you? Keeping watch from on high, making sure you’re safe, reminding you that in the hard and lonely places, you’re never really alone? I know, I know, it’s silly … <em> But have you? </em></p><p>Heh. Where was I? In school, I made the playground my rocketship, and for a short time, some of the other kids were my crew. We sailed the stars, searching for extraterrestrial life. Oh, we were brave, then; brave and smart and needing no one. Yeah, nothing in the universe could stand in our way. The moon was too easy a destination, and all those glittering stars seemed within reach, so out we struck, to the end of the universe.</p><p>Of course, around fourth grade or fifth, our jungle gym craft suffered an irreparable crash. We couldn’t fix it, and we didn’t want to fix it, and so it rusted to nothing in the back of our memories. It was time, you know? We’d learned, by then, the true distance of the moon, and how difficult it would be to reach it. As for the stars, they were pretty, but what was the use of gazing upwards at something you were never going to touch?</p><p>One of my classmates said that, or something like it, on his last day in the rocketship. “Lora, what’s the point? We’re never really going to make it into space.”</p><p>“Why not?” I challenged. “Yuri Gagarin did.” Apollo 11 wouldn’t land on the moon for five more years.</p><p>“Yeah, but… that’s different.”</p><p>“Different? How?”</p><p>“He’s not a little kid. And he’s not a girl. I don’t know if girls are allowed at NASA. Also, he doesn’t wear glasses. You can’t go to space if you wear glasses. You need perfect vision.”</p><p>I kicked him. He kicked me back. We were both sent to the principal’s office.</p><p>After that, I spent more and more time in the library. It was quiet there. The teachers sometimes worried over me, the counselors. I didn’t have enough friends, I wasn’t getting outside enough, I wasn’t <em> thriving </em> , etcetera, etcetera. I don’t think my mother cared. <em> I </em> certainly didn’t; all I needed was the books, and their separate universes. </p><p>In my junior year of college, my mother died. Suddenly. Heart attack. And I... How do I put this in a way that won’t make you hate me? <em> I was okay </em>. Despicably, selfishly, blissfully, I was okay. Really, I was. I hadn’t reached out to her in four months. She hadn’t reached out to me in eight. We’d grown apart long, long before that.</p><p>I was upset, of course -- she was my mom -- but I was upset in a vague sort of way, the way the general populace is when a celebrity dies. An old celebrity, a fixture in the nation’s psyche. A celebrity who never asked you what you wanted for dinner, or what your favorite color was, or the feasible ways one could bring the shining moon into a toddler’s room for them to play with. Like I said, a fixture. It feels wrong somehow when they disappear, but you see no reason why the earth should stop turning, you see no reason why you shouldn’t take that exam scheduled the Friday before the funeral.</p><p>Is this -- am I making sense? We grew apart, the way the galaxies in the universe are growing apart right now, by the unstoppable expansion of the universe. Soon, the stars will all be lightyears apart, and they’ll wink out in a sea of entropy and darkness, and it won’t be anyone’s fault. That’s the thing. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not mine, certainly not my mother’s. Can you blame the galaxies for following the laws of physics? </p><p>It’s okay. I didn’t need anyone. I could do it on my own. Always had. I felt like a star, then. Not in a glamorous way, but in a bright way, lonely, burning all night, out of sight. Do you know what the Romans called our star, the one that keeps this whole planet alive? <em> Sol </em> . Exactly. Now tell me, how did they say <em> lonely </em> ? How did they say <em> alone </em>? </p><p>I applied to grad school, for physics. I’d always loved physics, but you already knew that. The nature of energy, especially, intrigued me. What was it, exactly? Why couldn’t we create it or destroy it? When the first law of thermodynamics said energy could only change form, <em> what did that mean </em>? Were there definite limits, or could it take on any form possible, given a carefully controlled environment?</p><p>Yes, I am geeking out about this. Energy manipulation? It’s the coolest thing in the world! With any luck, you’ll be geeking out by the end of this.</p><p>Anyway. Grad school. So I went through grad school, I studied hard, I worked as a waitress to make ends meet, I dated a guy. I won’t bore you with the details. Nothing came of it but a PhD, $1255 in savings, and a broken heart. No, broken’s too dramatic. Cracked a little. </p><p>I was jobless then, 1980, right out of grad school. I was applying to research positions, hoping for an interview… but… it wasn’t happening, and it just kept on not happening. </p><p>Well-meaning people told me I should give up and be a secretary. <em> Pretty girl like you? Who’s gonna picture you in a lab? </em></p><p>They meant well, but no, I said. No. Heh. Sorry. I couldn’t be a secretary. The details, the work, the whole having-to-be-polite-and-demure all the time, no. No, <em> no</em>. That’s what I said. Secretly though, I considered it. Maybe I’d have to do it. My bank account was looking sad. I was on my own, completely, entirely. My lifelong mantra -- don’t need friends, fame, family, only scientific truth -- was all well and good, but I also needed to <em> eat </em>. That’s a scientific truth, too.</p><p>And then, in March of ’80, I got a letter.</p><p>I danced. I laughed. I cried. The kind old lady living next door to me rapped on the wall and asked me if I was all right, and I raced over to give her the excellent, <em> excellent </em>news. You know, by now, what it was. You know.</p><p>The company was named Encom. Short for Encompass, perhaps? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was their R&amp;D department was top in the nation for its groundbreaking work, one of the top contractors by the DOE and DOD both.</p><p>As I sat in the chair, looking out the great window at the city, waiting for my interview to begin, I remember thinking. I thought about time, and how funny it is, the places it takes us. I’d come a long way on my own. I didn’t need anybody.</p><p>My interviewer was late. Ten, eleven minutes late. And when he arrived, bumbling through the door, muttering apologies, scratching his white hair with one hand while absentmindedly shaking mine with the other (and consequently dropping several files on the floor), I forgave him. He just looked like the kind of person who, despite his best efforts, was often late to things. I’d never minded people like that, and I didn’t intend to start then, considering this individual wore a nametag that branded him <em> Dr. Walter D. Gibbs </em>, the man who had founded the company in his garage, the man who was the supposed head of the R&amp;D department. My boss, should everything go well.</p><p>“Tell me,” he asked me, after the handshake and introductions were complete – he’d forgotten to say his name in his eagerness to apologize and learn mine, but it really wasn’t necessary -- “Tell me,” he asked. “Where does magic end and science begin?”</p><p>Now, I’d prepped for this interview. I’d prepped like you would not believe. I’d rehearsed all the likely questions, I’d researched good answers, I thought I was ready, and here this old man wanted me to discuss the space between magic and science. I <em> froze </em>.</p><p><em> You’re unprepared</em>, my mind whispered. <em> You’re unprepared, and you’re gonna fail. You’re gonna fail. You’re gonna fail. </em></p><p>But he waited. As I panicked, he waited. He wanted to hear. He <em> actually </em> wanted to hear. And then, I saw it! The lifeline, the way out of the whirlpool of <em> fail, fail, fail</em>. It wasn’t a formality for him, it was a genuine question. It didn’t need a careful recitation; it needed a <em> theoretical conjecture. </em></p><p>What did I truly think?</p><p>The universe shifted. Encom fell away, and I was back in school again, perched up on the desk after class, talking with the professors about physics, venturing into the realm of the invisible.</p><p>I don’t remember my answer in that moment; nerves have erased it. I know it was something near to what I still believe today. Magic and science aren’t separate. If all the mystery is crushed from a complex process once you’ve learned it enough to know whether or not you can get something from it, you do not truly understand it. Understanding it requires an appreciation for its complexity, and an affinity to see new angles, new colors, new connections in the beautiful depths.</p><p>He was smiling as I spoke, getting excited. “Ah, interesting! Interesting! Magic and science being one and the same. Well, an unconventional view, that’s certain, but I think you’re half right. I do, I think you’re half right. Or all right, no one knows the answer for sure -- but I think there’s definitely some overlap in there. Between the realms of magic and science.”</p><p>“Of course, it depends on your definition of magic and science,” I said to him.</p><p>His eyes popped open wide. “<em>Exactly </em> what I was going to say.”</p><p>By the end of the day, Encom had a new employee, and I had a friend.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I began this on 9/29 for a reason.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. the laser</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> Pray, remember, that I leave you all my theory complete, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Lacking only certain data, for your adding, as is meet; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And remember, men will scorn it, 'tis original and true, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you. </em>
</p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Dr. Walter Gibbs was the first person I ever trusted with my Idea. I was always full of little-i-ideas, always, most of them half baked, many useless and impractical, all of them whimsical, half a foot on the ground and the rest in the stars. But my capital-I-Idea. That one, that one had promise. I’d snuck bits and pieces of it into my thesis, but I’d never told anyone the real Idea in full.</p><p>I think it must have struck the first time I saw a film. My mother didn’t own a TV -- too expensive. A classmate did, and as I watched the pictures dance in the bright cartoon world, I longed to join them. </p><p>Then I thought, <em> why not </em>?</p><p>And the Idea was born.</p><p>In ninth grade, I learned about the first law of thermodynamics. In tenth, I learned about atoms, and the things that built atoms… It all just kept getting smaller, all the way down, until it just became energy. <em> Everything </em> was energy.</p><p>Are you following? I can ramble sometimes when I’m excited, Dr. Gibbs was a kindred spirit in that respect. We got along well -- but are you following? We are all just energy, dancing lights, the exact same stuff as the pictures on the TV screen. Figure out the right process, and we can change that energy’s form. We can change our own forms -- configure it, go into the realm beyond the screen.</p><p>The idea was perfectly mad. Impossible. Dangerous.</p><p>I dared to tell him, though. In the presence of a man who seriously believed we’d colonize the planets within the century if the computers didn’t all come to life and kill us, who took Star Trek episode plots more seriously than the news, you gained confidence to speak your mind.</p><p>He wasn’t afraid to venture down strange pathways in the name of science. He wasn’t afraid of anything, I don’t think. <em> Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less </em> . Marie Curie. He had that in his office, among stuffed spiders, dismembered computer parts, and posters of the <em> U.S.S. Enterprise </em>.</p><p>Standing among such paraphernalia, looking to that Marie Curie quote for strength, I told him my Idea. It was why I wanted work for his team. They were already working on manipulating matter as energy. They just weren’t putting it into the computer yet.</p><p>Some of the techs overheard me, and they were quick to remind me of what I already knew -- that the Idea, though an interesting theory, was perfectly mad. Impossible. Dangerous.</p><p>And all the while, Dr. Gibbs was wrinkling his forehead, nodding, eyebrows twitching as he thought it over.</p><p>“It’s silly, I know,” I said. “It would never work.”</p><p>“Don’t say that!” He frowned, gazing suddenly off somewhere over my head. “In most silliness, there is some small bit of truth to be found. One must pursue it. Yes. Pursue it, until all the nonsense is chipped away, and only the <em> truth </em> remains.” He froze then, staring, unblinking. He did that, from time to time.</p><p>I turned back to my work, and he shuffled away, muttering about a call he had to make.</p><p>That call was to a contact in the DoE. It just so happened that Dr. Gibbs’ mind had been orbiting the very same Idea for years. Knowing he wasn’t alone on the theory? Hearing the lab techs argue that it couldn’t be done? I’ll bet that woke up the great “<em> And why the hell not?” </em> dragon that sleeps deep within all of us. Within two months, Encom’s R&amp;D department had a new initiative, a branch off the existing project. Before, we’d been using laser tech purely for a… how to put it... very <em> specific </em>kind of engraving. That’s all I can say on the matter -- the information has not yet been declassified. </p><p>After I trusted Gibbs with my capital-I Idea, we prepared to build a different kind of laser. This one, with the correct algorithms, would manipulate matter and energy. <em> Digitize </em> it. Change the form.</p><p>The day we finished our first draft of the laser design, Dr. Gibbs was as ecstatic as a child on Christmas. “I am excited -- very excited -- to see where this leads,” he kept saying, as he shuffled in circles and hopped on the equipment and laughed. </p><p>I couldn’t stop smiling, either. My Idea. It was on paper. <em> It was real. </em></p><p>“My dear,” he told me, clapping a hand on my shoulder, “this is an excellent Idea, purely brilliant.” He danced off again, leaving me with the distinct impression that he’d pronounced that word, “Idea”, with a capital I.</p><p>I think, perhaps, that was the very moment I first noticed the change.</p><p>Does that ever happen to you? You’re going along in your life, coasting along, staring at the ground, and then you <em> slam </em> headlong into the back of a metaphorical truck, and when you shake your head, clearing away the stars, you realize change has crept in on soft, kitten feet, and everything around you is brighter, and you’re in quite a different place <em> now </em> than you were <em> before </em>?</p><p>You look around, and you look down, and you realize you’ve changed, too. You’ve been changing all the while, you just didn’t notice it.</p><p>What I mean to say is, that was the moment I realized <em> it had all changed. </em> Somehow, with all of his rambling, eccentric kindness, Dr. Gibbs had woken it up, that thing inside me I <em> swear </em> I’d killed off by kindergarten.</p><p>Staring at my laser blueprints, I realized something horrible, horrible and… <em> beautiful </em> ; I… I hadn’t done it alone. I couldn’t have done it alone. And the rest of the project, although I’d be the primary lead, I wouldn’t be <em> alone </em> on that, I didn’t have to fight alone anymore.</p><p>And the most awful part of it was, I didn’t <em> want </em> to fight alone. I was so <em> sick </em>of fighting alone.</p><p>Should that have made me feel better? I don’t know. I think I felt worse, somehow; I remember the lab blurring; I remember walking into the hallway and sitting there, I remember finding it hard to breathe. </p><p>It felt like weeping without tears, it felt like dying without death. It felt like missing something I didn’t know existed.</p><p>For years, <em> decades </em>, I’d been missing it.</p><p>I’d been missing it since I was four months old.</p><p>I don’t know how long I sat there, waiting to realize it was anger, waiting for the anger to fade. It must have been a while; several techs popped into the hallway to check on me, but I ignored them, all of them, until Dr. Gibbs sat down beside me. “What is it?” he asked.</p><p>To my undying mortification (there’s an oxymoron for you), I began to cry.</p><p>He did not understand why, and neither did I at the time, so I was no help. He began dashing about anxiously, searching for a solution, and -- Eureka! An orange, wrapped in plastic, leftover from his lunch. That ought to do it.</p><p>I took the orange and laughed through the tears and the snot, laughed at the nonsense of it all. It was the kindest gift I’d ever received.</p><p>It took a while; years, in fact. But years are small to the universe. Little by little, the anger and sadness and nonsense evaporated, and all that was left was the beautiful, beautiful truth, and the truth was this: after twenty-four years, I’d found my father again. He had a different face, and a different last name, but he was my father, more so than the man who had run in fear.</p><p>Dr. Gibbs -- and I will always call him that, so long as I consider myself a student of his teachings -- knew no fear.*</p><p>And I, cautious of risk, always frantically chaining my feet to the ground for fear I’d float away and never return, I loosened the chain. Just a little. With a little experience, I could afford to theorize; with a little money, I could afford to dream. I could float a little higher from the ground, a little closer to that moon I swear is keeping watch over me.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. elementary physics</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Enter Kevin Flynn.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW (specific to this chapter): workplace harassment</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learnt the worth of scorn; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What, for us, are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>--</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Dr. Gibbs could ramble. I could ramble. Many of the lab techs could ramble. Thing is? We didn’t actually talk that much. The machinery was loud, and between our headphones, the face shields, and the mighty roar of Science herself, we didn’t have much room to speak.</p><p>This was just fine. Speaking is only one kind of communication.</p><p>We preferred our work to anything. We spent long hours in the lab without talking, staying after hours. For the cause and the sake of Science, our queen. </p><p>I was quiet, then; a quieter person than I am now. But at odd intervals, or when the silence grew too weary, he’d talk. Sometimes it was related to the work, sometimes about the state of the world. The state of the universe. Theories about creatures on other planets. Star Trek theories. He had a lot of those.</p><p>I never asked about his family. Terrible of me, perhaps, but I didn’t. Encom, as far as I was concerned, was his family. Proof? He spent all of his waking hours there, treated the lab techs and the lab equipment like his own children. He and Dillinger Sr. bickered like an old married couple in dire need of counseling. I suspected he didn’t have a family, and never knew the truth until later.</p><p>I was quiet all throughout those years, which is really funny to think back on. I was full of words then, but I didn’t say them. I didn’t know I could say them, really. For all my bold resolutions about independence and self reliance, I was too demure, too polite. There was a certain tech that could have stood some sass from me. Most of the techs were quiet and kind, but this one… this one.</p><p>It started small, you know how it is, don’t you? Little comments, demeaning, objectifying. He’d tell me my ass was looking good. Then he’d tell me the only reason I was here was because of that ass (apparently, they hand out PhDs in optical physics based on sex appeal). He told me I was so sweet, so helpful, had such innocent eyes, and how I must have been hired because the men around here like pretty scenery.</p><p>I said nothing.</p><p>It got worse. Not as bad as it could have been. But it was almost very bad.</p><p>Dr. Gibbs found out. Firing the tech was the least severe thing he did. Gibbs had authority in the field; that young scuzzball’s career in physics was <em> decimated </em>. </p><p>I’ll never forget the look on Dr. Gibbs’ face the day I came back to the lab, wary but eager to continue my work. It was hard to look at, and primed for a ramble. A rehearsed ramble. The infamous Gibbs-is-preparing-to-unleash-a-rehearsed-ramble face was well-known throughout the company. </p><p>Many of his rambles, you know. In one ear, out the other. But this ramble, I remembered. The gist, at least.</p><p>“My dear,” he said, softly, so no one else could hear. “My dear, I’m so sorry. I’ll never forgive myself for letting it happen. In this lab, the very temple of Science! I am so unspeakably sorry, I’ll never forgive myself. Please. Promise me, next time, you’ll say something, please. Before it gets so bad. Please. Say something. I’m on your side in this, I will <em> always </em>be on your side. </p><p>“And even if it isn’t an altercation of this nature, if you’ve got something you want to say, say it! You’re an intelligent mind, a remarkably creative mind; you’ve brought so much to this dear company already. What you have to say is important. Promise me you’ll say it next time.”</p><p>Fortunately, Dr. Gibbs had made quite an example out of that low-res, no good, 8-bit sack of segfaults, and there was no next time. </p><p>During that time -- the summer of 1980 -- I lay awake on long, burning nights, watching the moon dance across the sky, replaying his rehearsed-ramble in my head, pondering my silence. Why was I so quiet? Why? I knew my boundaries. I <em> knew </em> them. I knew I deserved respect. But I didn’t believe it. I didn’t <em> feel </em> like I’d truly earned it. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t rank up there with the men. I was a girl, a silly little girl who’d built her life on a silly, whimsical ideation about light and the universe. The universe… the moon… it was all so far away. Why did I ever think I could reach it?</p><p><em> A silly girl </em> , the moon seemed to whisper. <em> A silly girl who Dr. Gibbs thinks is intelligent, remarkably creative. </em></p><p><em> Dr. Gibbs is a silly old man </em> , I countered. <em> Probably going senile. </em></p><p><em> Dr. Gibbs is a genius </em> , the moon replied. <em> He has three degrees, all in branches of physics. He knows six languages. He built that company in his garage, and now it’s trading stock in four different nations. If he says you’re intelligent, if he says you’re remarkably creative, if he says your words have value, he’s probably right. </em></p><p>We argued, the moon and I, as the weather grew crisp and the laser neared completion and Dr. Gibbs started talking about building a computer program for our laser. Did I know how to program? Yes, I told him, but only Fortran. What about Basic, he wanted to know, because Basic would really suit our project better. Not yet, I told him. Not yet.</p><p>And I repeated his words to myself, over and over and over. A rosary. A lifeline. <em> Intelligent </em> . <em> Remarkably creative </em> . <em> Important </em>.</p><p>And I got angry. I was <em> not </em> just a silly, little girl. I was a woman who’d earned her place. I held a PhD in optical physics, for crying out loud, and I was simply full of words. Precise, important words, locked and loaded.</p><p>But something still held me back.</p><p>I was quiet. So quiet. Speaking when spoken to. Thinking all the time, words upon words upon words that I didn’t know how to let go of quite yet.</p><p>I was so quiet.</p><p>And then… </p><p>Well, then Kevin Flynn happened.</p><p>I wasn’t supposed to meet him -- no one ever was, nothing ever goes according to any kind of plan with Kevin Flynn. In order to build my program for the laser, I was sent up to the third floor to learn. </p><p>The third floor. Back then, it was known around the R&amp;D labs as the Cell Blocks. A huge space, a perfect labyrinth of cubicle cells, packed with people who knew how to program far, far better than I.</p><p>A programmer about my age was supposed to give me a tour of the place. Interesting fellow, rather reserved, bad habit of clenching his jaw and not blinking, not even once, when talking to me. He was supposed to get me set up in a temporary space, give me a refresher course on Basic. </p><p>No sooner had I introduced myself and my background when another programmer shot down the hallway on a swivel chair, propelling himself along, hair sticking in every direction.</p><p>“Well, excuse me,” he said, smiling broadly. “Is this <em> nerd </em> bothering you?”</p><p>I knew about this guy already. Everyone at Encom knew him. He was the guy who challenged the lunch staff to karaoke. He was the guy (it was rumored) who spiked the punch at the last Encom Christmas party. He was the guy who, right out of college, played a major part in the revamping of Encom’s telecommunication system. Everyone knew Kevin Flynn.</p><p>And as my guide led me steadily through the labyrinthine maze of cubicles, trying to get a word in edgewise about my schedule for the month, Flynn alternated between shameless flirting and bold theorizing, firing perfectly genius and perfectly idiotic questions in the same sentence.</p><p>I answered him honestly, and he took no offense, fully owning what little he knew -- <em> reveling </em> in what little he knew. The back-and-forth was easy with him, easy and electric, and I could tell, even then, that he was a person of Ideas.</p><p>Finally, my poor guide had had enough. “<em> Flynn </em> ,” he said, and it was the kind of voice you <em> don’t </em> ignore, even if you’re Kevin Flynn. “We’re on the clock here. It’s two hours till lunch break, think you can hold off ’til then?”</p><p>“Aw, come on, Alan, lighten up!” Flynn winked at me. </p><p>“Every second you spend jabbering is a second she loses learning how to do her job,” my guide -- Alan -- said. “Flynn. <em> Please </em>.”</p><p>“Aw, all right, you two have fun with your… Basic.” He made a face. </p><p>“A pleasure meeting you, Mr. Flynn,” I said.</p><p>His face brightened. “A greater pleasure meeting you, Ms. Baines.”</p><p>“That’s <em> Dr </em>. Baines to you,” Alan put in.</p><p>“Oh!” Flynn leaned back, nodding appraisingly. “<em> Dr </em>., huh? Radical. Color me impressed.”</p><p>“Color you going back to your cubicle and finishing ticket 107,” Alan said.</p><p>Flynn stuck his tongue out at Alan, shrugged at me, and skidded back to his cubicle.</p><p>Alan sighed, shaking his head as he powered on the computer terminal. “These things take forever to boot up, I’m sorry. And I apologize for Mr. Flynn’s behavior, too.”</p><p>“Nothing to apologize for,” I said.</p><p>He blinked, once, behind his glasses. “Can I get you some coffee while we wait for the box?” He rapped the side of the terminal. “Might as well show you where the break room is.”</p><p>His voice was quite… steadying, I remember that. A dramatic contrast to Kevin Flynn’s loud chatter. Flynn was effervescent, clanging and bubbling in your head long after he was gone. Alan was quiet, thoughtful, calming, giving you the sense that it all wasn’t as dire as it seemed, and that everything was really quite all right. If I hadn’t been so distracted by Flynn, I might have noticed what a very nice voice Alan Bradley had.</p><p>It’s funny, sometimes. Looking back.</p><p>Every day, I went up to the Cell Blocks, got ushered to my allotted cubicle by the exuberant Flynn, learned Basic from the serious Alan, ate lunch with (again) the exuberant Flynn and his circulating posse of friends.</p><p>I quickly learned that he ran an arcade, an <em> actual arcade </em> , in his spare time. Not too soon after that, I learned that he <em> lived </em>in it, slept in a bright room above the thundering action. Neither of these facts came as any great surprise -- the guy was absolutely obsessed with videogames. I couldn’t tell you the number of dates we went on without some bleeping Tandy game on hand. I didn’t mind, though. Not at first. </p><p>It was a cocktail of chaos, his arcade, and I was intoxicated. The vibrant lighting, the musical din of players and games alike, the warm scent of popcorn and body odor, the indefinitely-stained carpet printed all over with brightly-colored spaceships. I loved it. It was Flynn, heart and soul, and I loved it.</p><p>I loved that room, too, that room above the arcade. There was a worn, leather couch he’d pushed right up under the window, and whenever I lay on it, I could hear all of the action down below, kids and adults laughing and shouting in vaporwave glory, utterly oblivious to the glory happening in that room when the blinds were closed.</p><p>When I began dating Flynn, Dr. Gibbs laughed sometimes over stories of his antics. And boy, did the guy have antics. Dr. Gibbs was wary of these antics, ever protective of his lab equipment. He always used to glare hard at Flynn from under furry eyebrows, told him to treat me right or lose his position. I always reassured both of them that no harm would come to me. And no harm ever did. Flynn was very, very good to me, even when we drove each other insane.</p><p>It was… how to describe it? It was a short fling. Burnt out quickly.</p><p>But oh, did it burn.</p><p>And when we broke up, Flynn kept his job (of course), and we kept our casual friendship, smiling brightly at the world, crying behind closed doors. We were both a little sad, a little lost. </p><p>I wondered often, in the weeks after, whether I’d made a mistake. Not a mistake in the decision to separate, <em> that </em> was no mistake. No, I only wondered, and worried, that I’d wasted time with him. It had been fun, but there were many nights I could have spent furthering my research instead of losing to Flynn at Missile Command for hours on end.</p><p>I brought my worry to Dr. Gibbs one time, once all the other lab techs had gone. By then, I knew he’d never married -- never dated either, as far as I could imagine -- but he always <em> knew </em> things. So I told him my worry.</p><p>“Well,” he said, taking off his glasses, working out the smudges on the sleeve of his lab coat. “Well, well. Did you learn something from it?”</p><p>“Yes,” I said quickly. “I learned that excitement is no trade for maturity.”</p><p>“Good!” Flicking his glasses back onto his face, he gave me a wry smile. “Good, good. You have learned something. Then the time was not wasted.”</p><p>I nodded, and returned to my work, thinking I’d hear no more of it.</p><p>“Do you know what I’ve noticed?” he asked, still staring into the machine, taking notes with his right hand, adjusting the controls with his left.</p><p>I scrambled for a pen, poised to record his findings. “Shoot.”</p><p>“Detours are rarely wasteful. The nature of science—pure pursuit of truth!—depends on trial and error… does it not?”</p><p>I grinned -- this wasn’t a research discussion -- and put down my pen. </p><p>“Yes. I see nothing wrong or wasteful about our 72 failed builds with the connector… or our 204 failed test runs with the digitizer… heh, 204 oranges, lost in cyberspace… but then, then, you remember that? The 205th run, it appeared on screen. Clear as day, just as orange as you’d expect. Do you remember that?”</p><p>“I remember.”</p><p>“And—and it was replicable! Every subsequent time we ran it, it worked! <em> It worked </em>. Remember?”</p><p>“I remember.”</p><p>“You will fail often. I know only because I have failed often. But remember, in all your ventures -- science, romance, leadership, creative diversions -- <em> remember </em>. There will be a 205th run.”</p><p>All of a sudden, I wondered if I should have written it down anyway, and heat was rising inside me and when it reached my head I didn’t know if I was going to laugh or cry.</p><p>“Not… not to say you should date 205 people,” Dr. Gibbs continued, “though what you do on your off hours is not my business, and if you want to date 205 people, you can do that.”</p><p>I laughed.</p><p>“And not to say that you’ll find the perfect solution to <em> anything </em> after the 205th try. It may be on the 206th. Or the millionth. Or on the very next. Just don’t lose hope on the 204th, metaphorically speaking, of course. There will always be a 205th, my dear, always.”</p><p>My eyes prickled with tears, and I nodded, staring fixedly at blurring notes, trying to think of a reply. </p><p>“I say. What reading are you getting for gradient index two?” he asked, and I wiped my eyes and continued my work.</p><p>--</p><p>As I climbed up out of it, Flynn spiraled downward. He came into work underdressed, made no effort to hide his distaste for Dillinger, prioritized his many personal projects above his work -- and used company resources to further those projects, no less. I warned him, Alan warned him. He didn’t listen.</p><p>He lost his job after putting a hole in the boardroom wall. The way I heard it, he’d been up in Dillinger’s office, arguing about the network admin program locking him out of his own projects. Dillinger was unsympathetic. Flynn punched the wall. Dillinger fired him on the spot.</p><p>Shortly after that, Dillinger unveiled some new game designs to Encom’s Creative Endeavors department. Space Paranoids (an all-original design, by Encom’s very own Edward Dillinger!) went into development, and hit the market like a meteorite. Dillinger rose to senior EVP.</p><p>I went to check on Flynn from time to time, but he was bitter, bitter at Dillinger, bitter at Encom, bitter at me. His world shrunk to the arcade, except for the odd night he spent trying to hack back into Encom. </p><p>He was going nowhere fast. I thought it was the end of him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>cut to that one scene from 1982 where Flynn's all like “Elementary physics… a beam of energy can always be diverted…”</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. O, Fortuna!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Three young engineers and a relatively-untested security program, destroying a supercomputer hell-bent on world domination? What could go wrong?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>There is a small detail in this chapter which indicates blatant deviation from canon, in favor of science-lab-correctness. Kudos to anyone who can spot it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> You may tell that German college that their honour comes too late. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>--</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Let’s rewind. And reader, this will be a long one, so get some popcorn and settle in.</p><p>Do you know how a star goes supernova?</p><p>It takes its time. The star has to die first, and that takes a few million years of lonely burning, a little light in the darkness, crushed between the inward pull of gravity and the nuclear power in its core, resisting with all of its strength, resisting the inevitable, holding collapse at bay...</p><p>It does this for millions of years. <em> Millions </em> . Can you fathom it? <em> Millions </em> ? I took only three months to collapse into the inevitable. I should have seen it coming, I should have known, should have <em> intuited </em> it from the careful way my instructor guided me in the ways of <em> Basic </em> and <em> machine code </em>, the infinite kindness and patience he had as I crashed the computer again and again and again. </p><p>“Hey, it’s okay,” he’d say. “We’ll follow the error, and we’ll get it a little closer to compiling on the next run.” </p><p>“Damn right, we will,” I’d reply, and he would smile. He would always smile.</p><p>He was stubborn, and rigid, and patient. Always patient, always; as calm as a lake on a clear day. </p><p>I told myself it meant nothing -- well, I told myself to quit making poetic metaphors about the guy, and then I told myself there was nothing to <em> metaphor </em> about anyway, because it meant <em> nothing </em>! Alan Bradley was patient with everyone, though I sensed that patience crackling at the end of a short fuse whenever Flynn brought his firecracker antics near our training sessions. </p><p>I told myself, again and again, that it meant nothing. His patience after a long afternoon of circuit-blasting errors -- nothing. His deviance from the schedule to ask me about my thesis… my time in graduate school… why I chose physics in the first place -- nothing. His sharp sympathy when he learned about my family -- nothing. His <em> lack </em>of sympathy when Flynn lost his job -- nothing. </p><p>He respected my time and my space, but was forever letting me know that if I needed anything, he’d be there. He meant it, too; I tested him. Broken stapler, forgotten syntax, cup of coffee when I hit upon a thread of inspiration and didn’t dare lift my hands from the keyboard for fear the thread would break. A ride when my car broke down.</p><p>Nothing, nothing, nothing, <em> nothing </em>.</p><p>I’d already been through the fun of dating someone at my workplace, I wasn’t gonna do that all over again. I was invincible, immortal, a star meant to burn out alone into eternity. I didn’t need anyone, Flynn was proof enough of that. I wasn’t going supernova.</p><p>And then July ended, and so did my training sessions. My program’s outline was complete, my stuff packed up, my name removed from the temporary cubicle. I stood there, clinging to my notebooks full of Basic syntax, stood between the rest of Encom and the little space that, for three hours a day, had been our own. He went to lean one arm on the cubicle wall, thought better of it, and stuffed his hands into his pockets with a nervous little cough. “Dr. Lora Baines,” he said, “it was a pleasure teaching you the basics of Basic.”</p><p>I laughed, feeling desperately sad. “The pleasure, <em> Dr. Alan Bradley </em>, was all mine.”</p><p>“You are…” He pursed his lips, great blue eyes traveling up to the ceiling. “You -- you are a remarkably fast learner.”</p><p>“Well, I had a remarkably good instructor,” I returned quickly. What? It wasn’t flirting! It was the truth! And the truth should be told.</p><p>He was turning pink, and so was I, but I don’t think he noticed. I shifted my weight, and just as he was about to say something, I told him I’d better go.</p><p>He froze, and then sighed, nodding, pulling his face into a resigned smile. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer, but -- but Lora, if you -- if you ever need assistance -- with anything, you know where to reach me.”</p><p>I nodded.</p><p>He nodded. </p><p>And I ran back to the lab, just as fast as my hopeless legs could go, wishing terribly I hadn’t interrupted him. I knew my mind was running headlong into a logic gate. One, or zero? Yes, or no? Which should I decide?</p><p>No. Of course, the answer was no -- it was time to focus -- <em> really </em> focus -- on my program. It was just a shell at that point, an outline filled with comments where the subroutines would go. It was time to load it into my terminal and give it a name. </p><p>Lots of Encom’s classified projects were given mythology-related names -- Cerberus and Orion and the like. Dr. Gibbs had tossed a few names out there, but I didn’t connect to any. I realized I wanted something a little closer to home -- well, perhaps not <em> that </em> close to home, but something a little more <em> real </em>, something from the dog eared pages of my own mythology.</p><p>I planned to name it Yuri, after Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space. He was my legend, had been my legend since my space traveling days. </p><p>Back in the lab, I loaded the code onto the disc and waited for the prompt to appear in the terminal, all while Alan’s eyes <em> burned </em> in the back of my mind. <em> No </em> , I told myself, <em> no </em> . I was fighting so hard to hold that “ <em> no </em>” in mind that I almost missed the prompt. A question blinked on the screen.</p><p>
  <b>Enter file name: |________|</b>
</p><p>Right, right, of course. I lowered my hands to type my legend’s name.</p><p>And then -- <em> NO </em> -- there was a <em> sound </em> , just outside, a voice. I looked up sharply, still typing. It was Alan ( <em> of course it was Alan </em>), talking excitedly to Dr. Gibbs, who was indignantly pushing him back out of the lab because the laser was in operation and he’d just run in there without a visor. It was a comical sight -- Alan had almost a foot of height on the old man, but it was clear who scared who more.</p><p>“Alan!” I called out, trying not to laugh.</p><p>He looked up, all bright-eyed and triumphant behind his glasses, and held up my badge. “You dropped it!”</p><p>So I had. <em> O Fortuna </em>. I had grown too accustomed to slipping into the lab when the door was open.</p><p>I let my hand brush his as I retrieved what was mine, and could not stop smiling as I said I’d see him around. He smiled back, said he hoped I would.</p><p>It was only after I returned to the terminal that I realized my mistake. It was only a little one; I’d spelled <em> YORI </em> instead of <em> YURI </em> , all because of that <em> unbelievable </em>--</p><p>“Hm,” Dr. Gibbs was saying. “Hm. Nice fellow, that Bradley, if a little absentminded. Always says hello to me, which is more than can be said for my dear cofounder. Edward Dillinger, oh dear, heaven help that man’s poor wife.”</p><p>I grinned.</p><p>“But Dr. Bradley. Quite a gentleman, wouldn’t you say so, my dear?” Dr. Gibbs was looking at me, peering over tortoiseshell lenses, a smirk hidden somewhere behind his beard.</p><p>“I’ll miss our training sessions,” I conceded.</p><p>“Hm.” Dr. Gibbs nodded. “Well. Well, well. I’m certain we can find you a reason to go back up there from... time to time, hm?”</p><p>After millions of years of pressure, a tipping point is reached. The great heart of the star gives up. It takes less than a quarter of a second for the core to collapse, but when it does, the shockwave ricochets out to the surface of the star, and the whole thing <em> explodes </em> outward.</p><p>And I realized, as my mind went bright, I realized how miserable <em> that </em> would be, appearing in the Cell Blocks on forced notice, hinting, <em> hinting </em> , conspicuous, not quite supposed to be there anymore. Luckily, I’d picked up more than one lesson from Flynn. I’d learned the virtue of speaking up; learned how to lean into a moment and <em> jump </em>.</p><p>So I jumped. Metaphorically, of course. Out of the lab, and into the hall.</p><p>I found him by the elevators -- those notoriously, <em> mercifully </em>slow elevators -- tapping his left foot, gazing at the ceiling. I called his name.</p><p>He turned and smiled like he wasn’t aware he was smiling.</p><p>My stomach did a backflip, as stomachs are wont to do when jumping from a great height.</p><p>He cleared his throat and said in a rather gravelly voice: “I drop my badge back there or something?”</p><p>Before I even registered his question, I was asking him a very different sort of question, and he was answering <em> Friday night, 8 pm </em>, and then we stood there, statues that could only smile, as the elevator doors opened and a flood of engineers and ops folks rushed around us.</p><p>After that Friday night, there was another Friday night, and another -- a perfect chain reaction of Friday nights, and then there began to be Tuesday nights, and all the while, my laser program unfolded beneath my fingertips, a little supernova in its own right.</p><p>The program, a mere shell that would soon direct the power of a laser, remained as YORI. ROM-YORI-92954, to be exact.</p><p>“Yori,” Dr. Gibbs said, scratching his head as he drifted past the terminal one Friday afternoon. “What’s that now, that’d be <em> Trustworthy </em>. Excellent name for a laser, excellent, excellent. Let us hope it lives up to its name. Would be a shame, wouldn’t it, if our own creation turned against us?”</p><p>I asked him what he meant.</p><p>“Yori,” he explained. “In Japanese, it means Trustworthy. As a name, that is. In other contexts, it’s used to compare something that’s better than something else -- perhaps that is the inflection you intended.”</p><p>“Oh! No, no. It’s just a fortunate coincidence. A typo. It was meant to be Yuri, after Yuri Gagarin.”</p><p>“Ah, Yuri,” said Dr. Gibbs. “The first spaceman.”</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“And you left the typo?”</p><p>“Yes.” Again, I saw his face, Alan’s, flushed and triumphant, holding my badge on high. “I left it.”</p><p>“Hm. Well, it’s really quite apt. Do you see what you’ve done? Do you see it?” </p><p>I didn’t see it.</p><p>“Quite apt, really. It is his name, but with a little of yours bleeding into it, see? Interesting. <em> Yuri </em> , but with that <em> O </em> in the second letter -- like Lora. <em> Yori </em>. The two central letters are yours, you share them! One might say, it is the perfect picture of scientific progress -- centered on the foundation and inspiration of another, with your own new sights and discoveries coloring it.”</p><p>“In Yuri’s case, there was more inspiration than foundation,” I said. “I’m not sure that man ever worked with lasers.”</p><p>“Perhaps not. Yet, he inspired you, all the same. And something must have inspired him, somewhere along the line. Isn’t it fascinating? The ripple effect we have on one another?”</p><p>I agreed, wondering what the mutual inspiration of the human race would look like as a waveform function.</p><p>“I was inspired by many, many whom I never met,” Dr. Gibbs went on. “That ripple effect… it’s fascinating. Fascinating and encouraging, isn’t it? Because we never really know our impact. It’s one of the invisible things. We might inspire… tens… hundreds… millions of people down the line, and never know it! The same goes for destruction too, I suppose… Oh dear, I do hope there are more smiles than tears in my wake.”</p><p>I smiled, and assured him he had nothing to worry about.</p><p>--</p><p>It was a cold September night, clouds heavy with rain. Alan and I were standing on the bridge, in pleasant silence, leaning casually against each other to keep the cold at bay. I was thinking about his attentiveness whenever I mentioned the progress of my laser program. Suddenly wishing to return the favor, I asked him if he had any independent passion projects.</p><p>He watched me carefully. “How do you feel about Dillinger’s… uh… <em> choosy </em>network admin program?”</p><p>“<em>Master Control </em>?” I laughed. “It’s a joke. Catches malware about as well as a sieve, plus it’s a total resource hog. Did you know, the power in the lab used to dim every time Dillinger fired it up? Dr. Gibbs won’t let it into the systems on our side of the building anymore. He set up a new partition for R&amp;D, and wrote a firewall program to keep it out. The MCP’ll be decommissioned in a year, maybe less. Bet.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, <em> I </em> bet it won’t be long ’til the MCP breaks through Gibb’s firewall and gets right back into the lab.” Alan leaned forward on the railing, staring hard at the city across the bay. “I’ve been watching it.”</p><p>“Spying?”</p><p>He scratched the back of his neck.</p><p>“Alan, you’re going to get caught,” I told him.</p><p>He shook his head. “Unlikely. Last year, there was an incident pattern on Financial’s network. I managed to secure Roy and I a little… <em> authorization </em>to investigate those incidents.”</p><p>Roy Kleinberg worked next to Alan in the Cell Blocks. Alan mentioned him often; he called Roy the greatest hacker to walk through Encom’s doors, and also one of society’s greatest parasites (read: Roy had a habit of asking for the snacks Alan stored under his desk, and Alan never had the heart to turn him away). </p><p>“Of course, if we find other incidents outside our jurisdiction, what’s the problem with investigating them further?” Alan shot me a lopsided grin. “Amazingly, we’ve never been able to find the host that caused those indicators in the first place!”</p><p>I rolled my eyes. “So you created a problem.”</p><p>“Now, why would I want to sabotage my own workplace?” </p><p>“You absolute deviant,” I said. “I like you.”</p><p>“Yeah, I like you, too.” He turned back to the city, scratching the back of his neck some more. “However it came about, we’ve been given full authorization to investigate patterns of ill intent.”</p><p>“And have you found anything in this investigation?” A raindrop hit the top of my head, cold and sharp.</p><p>“Yeah, we have.” Alan did not notice the rain. “Files corrupted without explanation. Strange gaps in event logs. Programs falling offline and disappearing without a trace. Lots and lots of communication with unfamiliar hosts. Oh! And get this. When different terminals go offline, out-of-order, disconnected, what have you…” Alan’s hand migrated to the front of his head, ruffling his hair into a perfect tangle. “Well, once you get the host up and running again, and check its system logs for the time it was inactive, what do you expect to see?”</p><p>“Nothing,” I said, as the cold, cold rain prickled into my skin.</p><p>“Right! Nothing. And that’s exactly what we see on that host’s logs: <em> nothing at all </em> . But check the <em> department </em> logs, ha, nine times out of ten, those logs show that the inactive host was actually <em> active </em>the whole time, sending encrypted data to an unknown external network.”</p><p>“What does that tell you?” The rain kicked up in earnest, scattering over the bay. </p><p>“Tells me the host is actively doing things while it’s inactive, and then deleting its own history, which sounds like…”</p><p>“Sounds like someone did a sloppy job covering their tracks,” I said.</p><p>“Yeah, no kidding.” Alan laughed. “It took a bit of digging to find out who was behind it, but we found the culprit. You’ll never guess who.”</p><p>“Wait! Dillinger connected remotely to the machine and used it to wire money from Encom’s treasury into their checking account,” I guessed, wildly, as the thunder began.</p><p>“No, but good guess. No, it’s weirder. An <em> internal </em> program was running inside the host, sending data out to offshore clients.” He paused for effect. “ <em> The MCP </em>.”</p><p>“Maybe it’s just doing security sweeps,” I offered.</p><p>“Huh. Security sweeps that increase the system’s net virus count once they’re through? I don’t think so.”</p><p>“Well,” I said, as lightning split the sky in two. “What are you going to do about it?”</p><p>Alan ran his hands back through his hair one last time, and behind his rain-speckled glasses there was a glint in his eyes; mischief, pride, fear. “I’ve been writing a program.”</p><p>--</p><p>He’d been writing it for nearly two years, started it the exact same month I joined the company. The program was lightweight and independent, designed to run through every partition on Encom’s network, monitoring the traffic, shutting down anything fishy, resisting deletion. </p><p>The rain was getting worse. I asked if I could see it.</p><p>He said he didn’t see why not, and so, as the lightning flashed overhead, we fled to the quiet warmth of his apartment. He loaded the thing up on his Atari 400, bathing the room in blue.</p><p>“Here’s hoping the power doesn’t cut out,” I said.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he replied. “I’ve got a back-up floppy somewhere around here.”</p><p>“TRON,” I said, squinting at the header along the top of the screen. “Why’d you call it that?”</p><p>“Well, it’s short for <em> Elec-TRON-ic </em>,” Alan said. “I like to think I’m clever.”</p><p>“Oh, so when it acts up and crashes your system, do you call it by its full name to show you mean business? <em> Electronic… </em> ” I check the program ID. “ <em> Electronic JA 307020 Bradley </em>, you quit segfaulting this instant!”</p><p>It was a bad joke, but he laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. “Yeah… for the longest time, I meant to rename it,” he said, panning down through the code. “You know, something that <em> fits </em> its function, but the name just grew on me. I think it sounds cool.”</p><p>“It does sound cool,” I said.</p><p>He grinned from ear to ear. “Look! Here’s the section I’m working on right now. It monitors email correspondences.” </p><p>TRON fascinated me. Staring into that thicket of intricate syntax, I recognized many patterns that he taught me to write into YORI; stylistic shortcuts, tricks for efficiency, sectional arrangement. </p><p>There were some sections he could not show me (red tape and regulations and all that), and he covered my eyes as he moved through those sections, clearly not believing my ever-so-earnest promise that I would not peek. Still, he was happy to explain the ones he could show me, giddy as a child on Christmas. It was infectious; his enthusiasm, the way his eyes danced in the light of the screen; and I knew that this program was to him what my laser program was to me. I worked in a busy lab, bright and clattering with activity; he worked in the quiet isolation of the night, but he’d put his heart and soul into that program, just as I’d done with my YORI.</p><p>--</p><p>September 22, 1982. My program was scheduled to run the laser through a gauntlet of tests. I remember calling Alan early that morning when the sky was still gray, telling him the news, telling him if he wanted to watch, I was sure Gibbs would let him in. </p><p>He answered, voice heavy with sleep, and told me he’d love to watch. </p><p>I told him to make sure he wore his safety goggles.</p><p>This test gauntlet was a pretty important one -- not <em> the </em> important one, but a precursor. If our laser passed all of its tests today, we’d get enough funding from the DoE to design an even more impressive testing plan, and if it passed all of <em> those </em> tests, the project would be moved out to a center in DC for higher things.</p><p>It was a medium-big deal.</p><p>The other techs paused in their work to help, adjusting instruments, calibrating everything in the room to agonizing precision. Power roared in the walls, flooding through the channels we built.</p><p>I stood ready at the console, ready at the button, ready to launch YORI. Every time we fired it up, I got the same tingling weight in my soul, as though all the years were gently leaning in, leaning towards that moment, the moment that blinded all others. </p><p>The moment when the laser went off.</p><p>The sound in the room was incredible, rumbling through the floor like the ground beneath a launching rocket, and I had chills under layers of PPE, and Dr. Gibbs was looking up at me, wild glee in his eyes -- he loved this, and so did I, crash or fly, this was the reason we’d chosen Science -- and he was raising his hand, and he was giving me the signal.</p><p>I pressed the button, and the progress bar began to inch blue along the screen, and then, <em>and then</em>, with a deafening <em>ZAP</em>, my YORI program went active.</p><p>Reader. That laser passed <em> all </em> the tests. </p><p>You should’ve been there, I’m sure Gibbs would’ve let you in.</p><p>For the final test, as a little celebratory joke, I had the laser digitize an orange.</p><p>It was brilliant. It was glorious. My Idea, the one I’d danced with my whole life, had come to pass. Out of the screen, and into reality. We were on the way to harnessing energy manipulation. It was like starting over again, like standing on the edge of a cliff with a paraglider, ready to fly out into the glorious unknown.</p><p>--</p><p>That very night, we broke into Encom.</p><p>And you know. You know exactly how it happened, but do you know the stakes? Do you know how very close the world came to destruction? </p><p>Somehow, we pulled it off without getting ourselves incarcerated or killed, and in the weeks afterward, as more and more dark details rose to the surface, I found myself wondering whether we would have tried at all, had we’d known the stakes.</p><p>A silly question. Of course we would’ve tried! Flynn could never resist an adventure. Alan doesn’t know how to accept the end. And I could never stand idly by and watch those two idiots get arrested. Not without me. Not without the idiot who still had legal access to the system. Thank you, Dr. Gibbs, for your firewall! </p><p>Two miracles happened that night. The first miracle, of course, was that we pulled it off at all. Three young engineers and a barely-finished, relatively-untested security program, destroying a supercomputer hell-bent on world domination? We shouldn’t have succeeded. Sometimes I really do think there were invisible forces at work, pulling strings behind the scenes.</p><p>The second miracle, and even more remarkable to me: Flynn and Alan became friends. The best of friends. I suppose what they say is true: friends that commit felonies together stay together. Oh, they don’t say that? They ought to. It’s the truth.</p><p>We fought through the terrible legal fallout, and we fought <em> brilliantly </em>, with a little help and advocacy from Dr. Gibbs, and by a little, I mean a lot. Flynn emerged as Encom’s CEO, on top of the world once more, with Alan and I by his side. We had fun. We had so much fun. The company was right on the verge of a supernova, and we were having so much fun.</p><p>It was around that time that three things happened, one right after the next, three notes sharing a measure in a waltz, three things that changed the tempo.</p><p>I got a mysterious stomach bug whose effects only presented in the mornings.</p><p>I took a job in the Cell Blocks, far, far away from lasers and other radioactive equipment.</p><p>Alan proposed to me.</p><p>And then, like a beat out of rhythm, a low note that should have been high, a fourth thing happened.</p><p>Dr. Gibbs retired.</p><p>While us kids were rising to the top, he’d been diagnosed with cancer, and had the operation without any of us even knowing he was ill. It was a successful procedure, but he emerged with a renewed perspective on time, his own finitude, and what could be done in the intersection of that.</p><p>His last day in the lab was bittersweet; all the techs had grown quite fond of him, and we were all a little too aware that Encom wouldn’t quite be Encom without the founder around every day, bustling among the machines, rambling about gradient indices and ion stuffing and Star Trek.</p><p>“What are you gonna do now?” one of the techs asked him.</p><p>“Oh. Anything, anything at all,” he said, eyes twinkling like stars. “The sky is not the limit anymore. With this telescope I purchased from my very dear friend in Switzerland, I can see to the orbit of Jupiter. I might start there.”</p><p>We all laughed about that, and laughed over some other things, and I didn’t say much of anything at all because I didn’t want to cry in front of all of the techs, didn’t matter that some of them had burst into tears already, didn’t matter that I was bursting with words.</p><p>I kept waiting to thank him for everything, waiting for a lull, waiting ’til I was calmer, but I just kept saying nothing.</p><p>And then he was hugging us all, one last time; making a neutrino-related joke, one last time; looking around the beautiful lab, one last time; and leaving through the great sliding doors, one last time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"O Fortuna", according to Wikipedia, is a complaint about Fortuna, the inexorable fate that rules both gods and mortals.</p><p>fun and unrelated Basic video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vK84lvwQwo</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. please get the moon for me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Lora buys lil Jet a present.<br/>So does Alan.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight;</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You "have none but me," you murmur, and I "leave you quite alone"?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>--</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In the months and then the years after Dr. Gibbs' retirement, I kept thinking about how I had to write </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>, had to find some way of saying thank you that transcended words and reached to the stars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I stared at the moon and waited, but the words I’d been full of that last day in the lab had scattered to the four winds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Jet was three years old, I found this picture book in the kids’ section of the bookstore. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Papa, Please Get the Moon For Me</span>
  </em>
  <span>, by Eric Carle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It perplexed me then, the scientifically impossible plot, but I’d bought it anyway – that was what parents were supposed to do, right? Get kids’ books for their kids so that the kids would grow up literate? I didn’t know for sure. I’d bought it anyway, thankful that Alan at least had two fine examples to look towards, and if my gift flopped, he’d know a way to make it right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>My gift didn’t flop. Despite the insistent repetition of that word within my mind, </span>
  <em>
    <span>flop</span>
  </em>
  <span>, </span>
  <em>
    <span>flop</span>
  </em>
  <span>, </span>
  <em>
    <span>flop</span>
  </em>
  <span>, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>flop. On Christmas morning, as Alan made pancakes, Jet screeched with joy as he opened my gift, clambering into my lap, insisting that I </span>
  <em>
    <span>read, read</span>
  </em>
  <span>!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I held a transfixed Jet tight and read without thinking. My mind was up in lunar orbit, imagining all the ways one could feasibly get the moon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I didn’t call Dr. Gibbs up about the matter, but perhaps I should have. Our conversations were few and far between, but were very often focused on our first and truest love: Science. Determining a process to get the moon was as scientific a question as any.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I should note, the rarity of our conversations was no indication of our distance. Our minds were close, always. Months and months of silent sea existed between the islands of scientific theorizing, but when he called, or Alan suggested I call, we snapped back together, in lock-step understanding. Some could talk every day and still not reach that level of understanding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Speaking of lock-step understanding. When I had finished reading the book to Jet, Alan peered around the corner with the spatula, dripping batter onto the floor, smiling bemusedly. “You got him that book, too?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alan, the spatula--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm? Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>shoot--</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After we got the mess cleaned up and the table set, I asked him whatever had prompted him to buy it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alan told me he’d seen it everywhere in the store, so he picked it up. He’d liked the message in it, wanted to do that for Jet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The message,” I asked him. “What’s the message?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The girl wants the moon, so -- hold on, didn’t you read it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I did, but I was so busy thinking of actual solutions to obtain the moon, I spaced out and subsequently missed the entire plot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiled. “Well, the kid wants the moon--” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At that moment, Jet threw his spoon, a golden slash of applesauce across the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jet, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” I said, getting a napkin. “No. We do not throw our utensils. No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll get him a new one,” Alan said, leaning down to get the spoon. “You still wanna hear the message?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her dad is trying to find a way up to the moon.” Alan dropped the old spoon in the sink, rattled around the drawer for a new one. “He finds the tallest mountain ever, builds the biggest </span>
  <em>
    <span>ladder</span>
  </em>
  <span> ever, and then  -- here you go, buddy, now </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t throw this one</span>
  </em>
  <span> -- and then, he reaches the surface of the moon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm. I remember that. Dimly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm. Well. He encounters a problem, and no, it isn’t the earth’s rotation knocking the ladder out of place. The moon is too heavy to carry back down to the earth!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aw, man.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Yeah, don’t you just </span>
  <em>
    <span>hate </span>
  </em>
  <span>it when that happens?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I laughed. “Does he get it for her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alan raised his eyebrows. “You’ll... just... have to read the book. And find out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alan! I’m going to be reading it hundreds of times, knowing Jet’s habits. Besides, I already know he gets the moon, what kind of a kids’ book would it be if the kid didn’t get the moon? Tell me! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tell me</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Please?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right, okay. Yeah, he gets the moon. He waits until it wanes, until it’s small enough to carry down to her. The author didn’t write this for the realism, clearly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Clearly.” I grinned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes changed, shifting to soft-blue-curiosity. “Now, didn’t you have your own solutions?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right. Tell me about them. The day may come, Lora, when our child asks for the moon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I laughed, and as Jet chewed joyfully on his second spoon, Alan listened with rapt attention to my solutions, interjecting with questions – “How would we source the fuel? Legally, I mean?” “How much would that cost, that much aluminum?” “How would we cope with the subsequent disruption of the tides?” At some point, Jet lost his spoon again and began screaming, Alan moved to comfort him, and the subject had been dropped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But I thought about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I thought about it a lot, about the father in the book who had given his daughter the moon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I stared up through the dancing layers of atmosphere at the glittering stars, flung wild behind the moon, and let my mental pen fall to the floor. There was no way, no right way to thank Dr. Gibbs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I’d been an insecure, inexperienced kid, clinging bloody-knuckled to my endless curiosity and good math scores, secretly terrified it would never be enough, thinking about the people who’d shot me down, the people who left me hanging. The people who warned me that I – a woman – would never make it in the field of computational physics. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not Dr. Gibbs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d seen potential in me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d given me the ladder I needed to climb on, let me choose the mountain, pointed out a good place to set the ladder, given me a goal to reach for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d gotten the moon for me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How do you thank your father when he brings you the moon?</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The book I mention here was written by Eric Carle in 1986.<br/>I found a readthrough of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOiw0zXQQBQ<br/>--<br/>everyone! thank you so much for your amazing comments, y'all FUEL ME</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. cold days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kevin Flynn's gone, and no one seems to know where.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>there's a new moon tonight, so the sky is very dark.<br/>rather like this chapter.<br/>be ye warned.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> Well then, kiss me,—since my mother left her blessing on my brow, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> There has been a something wanting in my nature until now; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I can dimly comprehend it,—that I might have been more kind, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>--</em>
</p><p> </p><p>There were days in the lab when things didn’t go well. I got impatient with myself, the equipment, the other techs, Dr. Gibbs. He, in turn, got impatient with me, the other techs, the equipment, himself. We never fought bitterly, never raged. His way was not Alan’s nor mine; he didn’t build up and explode in red anger.</p><p>Yeah, there were days of serious silence.</p><p>But there were also days of serious <em> fun </em>, rare, rare days of happiness and levity. Once or twice a year, Alan and I invited him over for dinner. After putting Jet to bed, Dr. Gibbs and I set up games of Mahjong, teased Alan away from his paperwork, and had a good time. Alan usually won; Dr. Gibbs and I got lost, speculating on the future of computational physics. Sometimes Flynn joined us. Sometimes Roy Kleinberg joined us. You remember Roy, don’t you? Hacker, snacker, wonderful friend? Well if you don’t, I recommend getting to know him. He’s a fantastic individual.</p><p>More and more often, it was Roy and Flynn at our house, and then it was Roy and Flynn <em> and </em>his wife Jordan, before her tragic death in ’88.</p><p>As our lives wore on, I gave little thought to old Dr. Gibbs.</p><p>And then I took a research position in DC, and my life accelerated onward, and I didn’t think of him at all. </p><p>I hardly thought of anything at all; I was zeroed in, laserlike, on my research, trying to make sense of the failures and the numbers and the code. We’d sent inanimate matter into the screen. Would it ever be safe to send <em> animate </em> objects in? The question haunted me, and the answer did, too. I saw it sometimes, in the corner of my eye, flickering like a ghost in the console. It followed me around like a heavy scream, begging to be known. And I would know it. So I pressed on into the night with my team, and everything else fell away.</p><p>--</p><p>Then came 1989.</p><p>I was in DC when it happened, but the news crossed the country like an electric shock, and I saw it on TV before Alan called, voice cracking under the news.</p><p>Flynn was missing.</p><p>It electrified the world. The media had always flocked about Flynn like moths to an Olympic torch, catching fire with every word he said. Whether they condemned or condoned those words, it didn’t matter. Flynn brought the viewers.</p><p>And now, he’d gone without a trace.</p><p>The country -- the world -- went supernova.</p><p>But for those of us in Flynn’s inner circle, it felt more like a black hole. We hardly had time to gather up the pieces of ourselves before the investigation hit. It hit us hard, all of us in Flynn’s inner circle. Sam, Roy, Dr. Gibbs, myself. Alan. </p><p>It hit Alan hardest of all. The only fact anyone knew for sure was that Alan Bradley had been the last one to see Flynn before his disappearance. The last one to see him <em> alive </em>, that’s what everyone was thinking.</p><p>Obviously, Alan was a suspect. There were rumors, of course. Crazy, tabloidesque rumors, rumors that Alan was tired of living in Flynn’s shadow, and had done away with him, ready to rise to the top of Encom. As if Alan -- kind, responsible Alan, who didn’t give a damn for spotlight or status, would make a low power grab like that! </p><p>Believe me, if Alan wanted power, <em> he could get it without ever being suspected of murder. </em></p><p>He was grilled for a month, on and off, before he could fully clear his name, and the questioning didn’t end there. They kept pushing, trying to get a clearer picture of what might have been going through Flynn’s mind, where he could have gone, who might have wanted him dead. And Alan, Flynn’s business partner, Flynn’s closest and oldest friend, Alan would surely have a clue. </p><p>But he <em> didn’t </em> have a clue, and that drove no one crazier than him. See, it didn’t matter that the investigation found him innocent. Alan looked at his hands and saw blood. <em> The last person to see Kevin Flynn </em>. What if he could have said something, done something, stalled him a little? Could he have held off Flynn’s fate? </p><p>Or maybe it was the opposite. Flynn had been in a downward spiral even before Jordan’s death; laughing too loudly, sleeping too little; a strange darkness in his eyes, as though invisible forces were tearing him apart. Alan wondered if he’d said something wrong to Flynn, something that tipped his overladen mind too far to one side…</p><p>Eventually, Alan came to a bearable conclusion, and he held fast to it. Flynn was not dead, simply <em> away </em>. In hiding. Kidnapped. Held against his will. All kinds of crazy excuses, outlandish.</p><p>I didn’t believe it, but Roy did, and Roy amplified Alan’s voice, lit a fire under the feet of a hundred righteous engineers, and they blazed out all over the city with their jammers and their scanners and their tinfoil hats. <em> Flynn Lives </em>, they called themselves.</p><p>And the wild goose chase was on.</p><p>Just like the self-implications, Alan was obsessive. Lists upon lists, scattered all over the desk, under the pillows, bursting from the seams of his mind. <em> Where could he be? Where could he be? </em> He kept circling back to that arcade, when he wasn’t pushing the media away from Sam, when he wasn’t pushing for better management at Encom, he’d return there. He <em> kept </em> returning there long after the FBI had withdrawn, searching, trying to find that one little detail he was <em> certain </em>he’d missed.</p><p>When he slept, it was restless. He talked sometimes, in feverish fragments, over and over until he burst awake, saying he had to get back, he had to get back to the arcade. I tried to get him to stop. I begged him to stop. He was on the edge of a nervous breakdown, I told him, and I wasn’t going back to DC until I’d pulled him back from that edge. There was a nasty argument. I won, but it was a small victory, and everything just kept getting worse.</p><p>Encom was going under. Alan, as interim CEO, was trying his best to hold the company up, staying late at meetings, powering through mountains of paperwork, enduring the beating of the shareholders and the media -- all those cameras on one side, Encom and little Sam Flynn on the other. </p><p>It wasn’t enough.</p><p>And I am not saying he didn’t do enough, I know how hard he fought. I stood by him as he pushed himself beyond the limits of sanity, stubbornly holding us all at arm’s length, trying to shield us from the worst of it. I pushed back, gently but just as stubborn, giving him ideas and support, something to brace against in the storm. I fought, too. We all did. It simply wasn’t enough. </p><p>Encom was crumbling from the inside out. Some senior board members had been wanting to take things in a different direction than Flynn for quite some time, and they saw this as their golden opportunity. The workplace politics were brutal; the outcome, worse. Hundreds of people took pay cuts, hundreds lost their jobs. Good people, who didn’t deserve it. Encom lost them. And Encom kept losing.</p><p>We had a competitor, then; Dillinger Systems. It was overtaking Encom in the market, stirring up the press, rocketing upwards on the thermals of Encom’s disgrace. </p><p>The company’s stock plummeted to an all-time-low on the day I was supposed to fly back to DC. Alan wouldn’t be back till late-late, so we’d planned to take Jet to Sam’s grandparents’ house for a sleepover. After I hugged him tight and dropped him off, I’d made some phone calls, canceled my ticket, tried to not blow my stack at the lab director’s impatience, reminding her that I wouldn’t make such a decision without very good reasons.</p><p>I needed to be home. </p><p>Jet needed me. He’d only just turned seven then, a very quiet kid, confused by the dizzying chaos. He clung to Sam Flynn most of the time, but at the end of it all, he needed a good meal, someone to tuck him in, read to him, just be there.</p><p>And <em> Alan </em>needed me. The past months had taken a heavy toll on him. He’d lost weight, developed a terrible cough, and the awful shadows painted around his eyes kept getting darker. He wasn’t even 40 yet, and his hair was graying into silver. He was strong. He was so strong. And he was breaking.</p><p>I wasn’t leaving.</p><p>I waited up for him, on the night I should have been gone. By the soft, yellow light of the coffee-table lamp, I pretended to read an astronomy magazine until keys clattered in the lock, and he trudged into the house. </p><p>He jumped out of his skin when he saw me. I’d called earlier to tell him my decision, but it had gone straight to the answering machine. He’d evidently not listened, and I remember thinking that it must have gotten bad, very bad, if Alan hadn’t listened to his messages.</p><p>“Why...” The heater was on, but he shivered. “Why are you still here?”</p><p>“Told you on the phone,” I said. “And you’d do the same if our roles were reversed, so don’t tell me--”</p><p>“No. No, no, you have to go back.” His voice was ragged. He hooked his glasses on his collar, and rubbed his eyes. “Come on. You can’t put your work -- your <em> life </em> on hold over this.”</p><p>“This is my life, too.”</p><p>He sighed. “It’ll be taken care of. Just -- please, would you go back to your work and quit worrying over me?”</p><p>“Quit worrying? How am I supposed to quit worrying? Look at you. You need to rest.” </p><p>“I--”</p><p>“You need to <em> process-- </em>” </p><p>“I don’t need to do <em> anything </em>except--”</p><p>“That’s why I’m still here.” </p><p>“--except get us all through this, figure a way to get Flynn back and keep Encom afloat without -- without compromising our morals, or losing any more people.”</p><p>“Stop. Just stop. ‘Get us all through this’ -- would you quit acting like you’re the only one? <em> You are not alone in this! </em>Let us help you! Me, Roy… I’m sure even Dr. Gibbs--”</p><p>“Oh, Roy.” He laughed then, bitter and twisted. “Roy’s got plenty other stuff to worry about, now that senior management <em> fired </em> him.”</p><p>I paused. “What?”</p><p>“Yeah. One of the first programmers Encom ever had. One of the best, too. Gone.” He wilted, something terrible in his eyes, something far, far worse than anger. “I fought so hard for him, Lora. I tried so hard to change their minds. No use. Called him up earlier, seeing if he needed any help mov… moving out. He didn’t answer, and... well, I don't blame him. I failed him, Lora. I’ve failed… <em> everyone </em>.”</p><p>I took his hands, cold as ice, and I told him it wasn’t his fault, that he’d fought as hard as hell. Roy didn’t blame him, no one blamed him. Roy likely just wanted to process things alone.</p><p>He shook his head, taking his hands back from me and hiding them in his pockets. “I’m sorry. Lora, I’m so sorry. About everything, all this...”</p><p>“Alan.”</p><p>“Everything is…” His jaw tightened, and he ducked his head. </p><p>“Hey,” I said. “Alan, listen to me. Don’t despair. Don’t give up. We are going to get through this.”</p><p>I don’t know if he even heard me. His eyes were distant, lightless, and in the moment before he covered his face, I could <em> see </em> him falling into himself, away from the light.</p><p>
  <em> It takes less than a quarter of a second for the core to collapse. </em>
</p><p>“Oh, Alan…”</p><p>I guided him to the sofa, and let him lean on me, until his silent grief gave way to a coughing fit. I rubbed his back to ease it, wishing I could take the air from my lungs and give it to him, burning to make it better. I had to make it better. But how? How do you do it? Do you know what it’s like? To wander for so long through wasteland darkness, you don’t think it will ever be morning? What do you say? What do you do to convince another we might still see light again? Is it enough to be with them in the dark?</p><p>It’s going to be in my head forever, every single thing about that terrible night. The humming of the heating unit, the sharp angle of his left elbow digging into me, the soft, yellow flickering of the lamp. </p><p>Alan could hardly breathe when the apologizing began. “Lora, I’m sorry I got after you about that plane ticket.”</p><p>I let my forehead drop against his shoulder. “Shh. It’s okay.”</p><p>“No, it’s not,” he said. “It’s not. Do you know how much it kills me knowing that this is keeping you from DC? That you can’t focus on your own work because I can’t -- I can’t hold it together at home?”</p><p>I held him tighter, as if I could stop us both from falling. “Helping you is no burden to me. Now you stay put. I’m going to make you some tea.”</p><p>He nodded, sinking his head back into his hands.</p><p>As I made the tea, I could hear him coughing again, from the other room. It sounded awful, and I got scared. It's funny, isn't it? The things you remember when you're scared? I remember that water, the way it bubbled in the pot, the way I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, my mind stuck on a loop of the same terrible thought. </p><p>
  <em> Alan is going to die.  </em>
</p><p>Yes, I was certain of it. He was 39 years old, and he was going to die. It still catches me, every time I see water boiling, it still catches me, and the smell of orange spice tea still makes it hard to breathe.</p><p>
  <em> Alan is going to die.  </em>
</p><p>I stirred some honey into the tea and took it to him, struck by the way he looked up at me.</p><p>
  <em> Alan is going to die. </em>
</p><p>He smiled bravely as he took the cup, and I thought about the fact that he was going to die and it might be one of the last times I ever saw that smile and how little I’d been around to see it and I started to be afraid; deep, spine-searing, leaden-stomach afraid. I smoothed back his hair --</p><p>
  <em> Alan is going to die. </em>
</p><p>-- and I told him to please, try to rest, I had to go, I had to make a phone call. </p><p>Without even knowing what I was doing, I ran into the other room, picked up the phone, and dialed the only number I could think to dial.</p><p>I held out as I talked to him, I held out waiting for him to arrive, but when Dr. Gibbs showed up at the front door, face wrinkled with concern, blinking sleepily in the porchlight like a flannel-feathered owl, I threw my arms around the old man and cried until I couldn’t see.</p><p>“Oh dear,” he said. “Oh, my. Oh, dear. Ev--Everything is going to be all right. Let me in, it’s freezing out here!”</p><p>I only had to make one call, one call for help. After that, help kept showing up at the front door, giving Jet rides when he needed them, getting groceries, sometimes cooking even though he was very bad at it. He kept Jet and I company, and joined forces with us in making Alan eat, sleep, and take his antibiotics.</p><p>Eventually, the sun began to rise again, and I looked at the surrounding sky in all its colors without a wink of cynicism. </p><p>Eventually, my brain stopped telling me <em> Alan is going to die </em> and it told me <em> Everything might be all right </em>.</p><p>Eventually, Alan’s physical illness healed, and he found the time to talk to a psychologist.</p><p>Eventually, I bought a ticket back to DC.</p><p>Somewhere in the middle of that dark time, while Jet snored up in his bunk and Alan slept the sleep of the drugged, Dr. Gibbs came over to help me clean house. Once that was done, we played chess, in honor of that half of the MCP that had been Gibbs’. We never could play chess unironically after 1982.</p><p>The game, as it turned out, was not meant to be finished. We were tied, each of us sitting at 13 pieces left, both poised in excellent positions, when the conversation moved in and our battle of wits met an infinite stalemate. We talked about Encom, we talked about three, four, ten dimensional chess. We talked about computer science and where the field might be in twenty years. </p><p>We talked about him. Old Kevin Flynn. And we cried.</p><p>And then I stopped talking and simply listened. Gibbs could ramble when he was tired, and ramble he did. He rambled to me the way I rambled to myself, wandering backwards into the past, talking about old times in the lab, laughing over our laser, all the times it crashed unexpectedly, all the annoyance it caused.</p><p>Suddenly, he trailed off, watching me critically. “I do apologize for that, you know.”</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>“For my coldness. You’re like a daughter to me, my dear. The daughter I never had.” He gazed off into the distance, pursing his lips. “Although, it seems I did have one, all along. Perhaps I should have been more patient.”</p><p>“Don’t say that,” I assured him. “You were always very kind.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. and you will reach the stars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> I "have never failed in kindness"? No, we lived too high for strife,— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still </em>
</p><p>
  <em> To the service of our science: you will further it? you will! </em>
</p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>My life is a patchwork of nights, sleepless and bursting with thoughts as the moon circles the planet and together we circle the sun. Sometimes, Alan’s warm presence is beside me and I listen to the soft rhythm of his breathing and repeat that number, over and over, until I can sleep. <em> 205. 205. 205. </em></p><p>And then there are colder nights, awake on the other side of the country. There are nights when I wonder if moving to DC was the right choice, if I’d overshot the 205th and run headlong into the wrong, wrong 300s. During one of our rare phone calls, I mention this worry to Dr. Gibbs. He assures me that I’m out seeking knowledge and truth, and anything, <em> anything </em>, is worth that. For arguing’s sake, I argue that it isn’t, and he stubbornly counters that it most certainly is.</p><p>He’s right. Despite the loneliness, he’s right.</p><p>The universe is full of secrets, and we only skate along the surface like waterbugs, while coral reefs and unimaginable vibrancy coruscates beneath, calling from far away, waiting desperately to be seen and understood.</p><p>The universe called to me from an early age, and I could not ignore it, so I still run doggedly after that cry, doing what humans have done from the very dawn of our time. Building crude instruments and peering with weak and weary eyes into the heights and the depths. Trying to grasp the fine connection between matter and energy. Treading the path between all that is visible and all that is invisible.</p><p>I know this. I do.</p><p>But there are nights when I wonder how much it all really matters. Icy, unforgiving nights when all I want is to ruffle up Jet’s hair, feel Alan’s cheek against mine, play chess with Dr. Gibbs.</p><p>There’s an ache in me when I think of the miles -- a whole nation, stretching between us, stretching me thin. Here’s a metaphor for you, dear reader; unglamorous, but accurate. Jet and Sam used to take their half-chewed gum and compete, see how far they could stretch theirs before it broke, or someone (usually Alan) told them to knock it off. It was gross, but fascinating, watching the little holes bloom and grow within the fading color, until someone’s gum finally, <em> finally </em> snapped. I am that gum.</p><p>--</p><p>Sometimes I feel like a traitor, a selfish traitor, choosing science first. But the undeniable truth is, I <em> did </em>choose her first. I chose her long before I’d met Alan, and she chose me, and he understands. </p><p>He understands so many things. Remember when I asked about the moon? One cold night, back in ’84 or ’85, he asked me the same question. <em> He feels the same way! </em> We got a kick out of it then, the silliness of it, but it’s our saving grace, now. When the day’s been too hard, we both look up at the same moon, and it’s looking at both of us at once. Makes the distance seem smaller.</p><p>On the days when there are too many clouds, or there is a new moon, we call each other up, if time allows. </p><p>--</p><p>It’s ironic, actually. The moon was just on the other side of full when Alan called me, an edge in his voice. I knew that edge.</p><p>Anyone who’s lost someone knows that edge, knows the iron glacier that materializes in your stomach, bleeding ice into your veins. </p><p>And that edge has crept into his voice far too often since Flynn disappeared.</p><p>Alan. He starts out strong, but the edge always creeps in, and he’s weary by the last goodbye. He’s broken down several times, told me he wishes I were there -- he understands why I can’t be -- but oh, dear God, he wishes I were there. And I wish I were there, too, to be near him. My 205th.</p><p>In the meantime, we must settle within each others’ voices. We don’t talk about Flynn, not usually. We talk about Jet, about Sam. About Encom. We talk, <em> a lot</em>, about Encom.</p><p>But Alan’s phone call, during the full moon, it wasn’t about Encom. It was about Dr. Gibbs. The cancer was back. He wouldn’t operate, wouldn’t have treatment. He was 81 years old, 82 in October. His time on this planet had been excellent, but the end was drawing near, and he’d accepted it. </p><p>“Just accepted it, just like that,” Alan sputtered into the phone; stubborn, resourceful Alan, who doesn't know how to accept the end. Even as the sun consumes the earth, Alan will be out there under the fiery sky, furiously directing people towards a solution.</p><p>--</p><p>I flew back to LA to visit, to try and tell Dr. Gibbs everything I needed to tell him before he left this existence. I had so many ideas on the plane, yes -- ideas and Ideas, both. Somewhere between LA and DC, I took a sticky note and drew a little picture that I never planned to give him, a little picture just to get my thoughts straight. I couldn’t make myself do anything else. I gazed out the window at the cities instead, glittering in the dark like star colonies. Dr. Gibbs always thought humanity would settle among the stars. I leaned against the window, engine rumbling through my head, and let my own thoughts settle among the star cities, sticky note crumpled in my hand.</p><p>And by the time I was there, jetlagged, encased in linen and white paint and sterile hospital smell, all of my words had run away.</p><p><em> He </em> was full of words though; precise, important words. He wanted to talk about the old days, how we built that incredible laser, how the MCP was deleted, how Flynn led the company into chaos and glory, all the Star Trek episodes he’d seen since his retirement. There was a nurse in the ward who liked Star Trek, and she’d begun wearing Star Trek pins whenever she visited him, just to see him smile.</p><p>We talked about my research, and he’d made some comments that piqued my interest. Even after all those years, all that aligning of personality and perspective, his perspective was still different enough to make me wonder.</p><p>Then he’d rambled himself into exhaustion, and I still couldn’t think of the words, and I looked at the clock and knew that in 18 minutes, the nurse with the Star Trek pins would come in to tell me visiting hours were over. I sat there mumbling about silly little glitches in the DC laser, and then just nodded-smiled-tried not to cry as he started up again, talking about death and the invisible and how the body was just an interface for the program known as the soul.</p><p>“I’m not afraid,” he told me.</p><p>“I know,” I said. Dr. Gibbs, my father, he wasn’t afraid of anything. </p><p>“Why do you worry?” he asked. “Are you afraid of your own mortality? It comes for us all, not one of us is exempt. The real question is: why would we ever want to be? This place is falling apart. Entropy races upwards. It’s really quite fantastic for a while, but one must not overstay one’s welcome.”</p><p>It was getting harder to look at him. “I’m gonna miss you a whole lot,” I said.</p><p>“You know, I’ve been wondering, on and off, for years,” he muttered. “About the <em> essence </em> of a person’s soul. Perhaps… perhaps, when one really works hard on something, putting in the long hours, infusing that creation with our strongest and our best, a little bit of our soul is reflected there. Just a little piece of it, as though our personality, the program within the interface, was a bright celestial thing capable of being reflected. I’ve never been able to find an adequate conclusion for that… it’s one of the invisible things, it defies scientific observation. I can only conjecture.”</p><p>“What do you conjecture?”</p><p>“Well… hardly more than a lot of nonsense… but of course, in most nonsense, there is truth… I could tell you not to miss me, that you only have to look around Encom to see me again, in a hundred different ways… in the programs I wrote, in the design of the lab, in the things written in the margins of our documentation... or I could tell you about the strong, strong hunch I have that my soul will keep going on after this body dies, beyond this visible shell you see here, and we will meet again in quite a different way.” He shrugged, sinking down, ready to sleep. “Either way, I do not fear the end. <em> Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light </em>.”</p><p>“<em> I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night </em>,” I completed.</p><p>He nodded, smiling so broadly, his wrinkles swallowed his eyes in delight.</p><p>And I knew then I had to try, that it was never going to be enough, but I had to try.</p><p>I rambled out a paragraph of words, of halfway sentences and broken phrases, trying to adequately describe how much he’d done for me, trying to reach the moon with my gratitude. And then, hardly knowing what I was doing, I reached into my pocket, and pulled it out, the crumpled little drawing I made on the airplane, halfway between DC and LA.</p><p>It was a little sketch of a stick-figure girl climbing up a long ladder, braced against the right-hand side of the paper, climbing up to touch the moon.</p><p><em> Thank you </em> , I’d written in the empty space. <em> Thank you for helping me reach the moon </em>.</p><p>He winked and blinked his old, blue eyes, and they filled with tears despite his best efforts. They made his smile seem all the brighter, and he held my hand for a long time before he could say it. “You’ve reached the moon, yes. But the universe is not through with you yet… I have taught you all I could… and you will learn more than I ever knew. You must go on, you <em> will </em>go on. Yes... And you will reach the stars.”</p><p>“Without you?” I said. “I don’t know if I can.”</p><p>“You will. This universe is almost done with me, my dear. But not you. Not yet.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. patience</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>There are certain calculations I should like to make with you,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true;</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And remember, "Patience, Patience," is the watchword of a sage,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>--</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On Thursday, I flew back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alan wore a shirt the color of the morning sky, and drove me to the airport, and I hadn’t cried that whole trip but I cried in the car, face going blotchy behind the running rivulets of mascara. Alan drove with one hand, the other locked resolutely around mine until we got to the airport.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I had great things upwards, but the things I was leaving behind on the ground always weighed heavily. I’ve said before I felt stretched… but… it’s worse. It’s so much worse. Far too often, I’m torn asunder, feet on the western ground, head in the eastern sky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I left tearstains on his left shoulder, smudges of storm in the sky. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Usually, when we part, I tell him I wish I didn’t have to go. He usually promises, firmly, that it will be all right, that he understands, that he’s proud of me, that it will all be worth it. I usually tell him the same, and I thank him for being so strong. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That time, it was different. He didn’t speak, he only held me, closer, tighter than usual. I could hear his heartbeat, feel the shivering as he held himself together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I didn’t say anything, either. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it was okay. Speaking is only one kind of communication.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When I finally pulled away, there were tears in his eyes. He continued to smile as I went into security; firm, wistful, determined smile, plastered across his face as I made it through the queue, wishing the whole time I could </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> run back to him. I got my shoes back on, and waved back through the crowd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waved back from the other side, and I very nearly lost my nerve.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he gave me a nod, firm and final. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Go on</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so I did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I hoped he was holding up all right on the drive home. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s never told me how he manages that drive, and I never ask. Personally, I’m always grateful I don’t have to fly the airplane. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Dr. Gibbs was my ladder to the moon, Alan is my spacesuit, my oxygen tank. Leaving him makes it hard to breathe. Leaving him always aches, sometimes in a way that knocks me into a dark, dark sleep; sometimes in a way that ruins my vision for hours. It always, </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> aches, but I rest easy in the fact that he understands. He understands in a pure, pervading way, he understands like few others do. He understands the burning need for scientific understanding, for building up a project to its completion and gaining a broader appreciation for the universe once you’ve reached the very zenith of your own little peak. He understands exactly why one would sacrifice so much for a cause. He is admirably strong, my 205th; his determination and patience run in deeper veins than I could ever reach, and we both burn for the day that my research reaches its conclusion, and I can return for good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Patience.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I’ll be back someday soon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Patience is the key, and on the airplane, I remembered that. I had to return to my research. It would be good, very good, to get back into it. Finish it, polish and purify the bit of truth inside. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Patience, Lora. Patience.</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. go on</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>I have sown, like Tycho Brahé, that a greater man may reap;</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But if none should do my reaping, 'twill disturb me in my sleep.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name;</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>--</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Science marches on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The weeks stretch between my visit and the present. I slip quickly back into the flow of research. I know his time is running out, my mentor and father, and I hope to have one last visit home, see him one last time before he leaves this mortal plane.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wouldn’t it be something if we could finish our research, and I could tell him everything he worked towards was completed in his lifetime?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the interim, I carry on his experiments, carry on in his name. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>I must tie up the ends he couldn’t, I must fill in the blanks on the questions he asked, I must color between the lines he drew, and then I must draw new ones. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>I must, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>must </span>
  </em>
  <span>push the boundaries of human understanding forward, forward, out towards the stars. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is never easy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, the system breaks under the load of testing. Sometimes, unexpected bugs cause shutdowns and erratic behavior in the laser, the lab suffers power line failures, and the notes all blend into each other, and I’m tired, and I’m irritated, and the numbers don’t line up the way they should.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But I press on towards that moment when the numbers </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> line up, and that pure beam of light flickers on, and the atoms fire through their chambers in perfect symmetry. The moment all of our work, all of the years, were leaning towards. The moment the tests </span>
  <em>
    <span>pass</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s been difficult. Very difficult. But it’s almost done; the laser’s passing more and more tests by the week. My research here is coming to an end, and I’m preparing for the next big leap. I’ve been filling out applications, sending them to the four corners of the earth. Anywhere that needs a lab director, I’ll go. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Science marches on, and so do I.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alan calls me with light on his voice, tells me about Jet acing his math test, about the Flynn Lives group helping Sam get his driver’s license. He tells me how he managed to save the R&amp;D department from Mackey’s death-clutches for one more year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Science marches on, and so does he. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Our project’s documentation manual gets longer and longer. The ends are tied up one by one by one. It’s a rush like no other, it’s clicking together like the last, frantic pieces of a puzzle, the last twist of a Rubik’s cube, the way the road looks when you know home is just around the next turn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And now, tonight, the sun is gone, the sky a dim yellow, gloomed over with scud clouds, and the landline in the corner is ringing. A few techs and I are tidying the lab space for the night. Tired. Aching ankles, burning eyes, we’ve been up since five a.m. Science marches on, and so do we.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The landline in the corner keeps ringing, and keeps ringing, and finally I answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lora?” It is Alan, and his voice is hollow, and I know. “Hello, beautiful. I have some news.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. finale</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak; </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak: </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars. </em>
</p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>It is October now.</p><p>Tomorrow, he’d be 82.</p><p>The moon is nearly full, rising bright on the horizon, and I’ve turned away from my queue cards. Tomorrow, I’ll give a speech.</p><p>Tomorrow, I’ll thrill the crowd with the beauty and truth of my team’s research. I’ll share in their joy, rise on their inspiration.</p><p>There will be younger people in that audience, there always are. Little mirrors, back into time. College students, eyes shining with that spark I once had. </p><p>Heh. <em> The spark I once had</em>. I say it like the spark has gone out. Really, it’s quite the opposite. It’s not a spark anymore, it is a fire, carefully tended and directed. Into the night I’ll shine, a torch, a searchlight, a laser beam, pointing them each towards their own mountains, encouraging them to build their own ladders up towards the moon. </p><p>Tomorrow, when the moon is full.</p><p>Tomorrow, I’ll give my speech, and the day after that, we’ll run our final tests, document our final findings, and crack open some champagne in honor of the far future. Who knows where our science will find itself on that far-off horizon?</p><p>In the near future, I’ll check into that flight -- IAD to LAX. The near future will find me home. I will take Alan in one arm and Jet in the other, and all the days after that will be ours to do with as we please, running free into the terrible and the beautiful. </p><p>My application, you see, was accepted. Encom’s R&amp;D department is in need of a new lab director, and they think I’ll do just fine.</p><p>At last, at long last, I have arrived at the 205th. </p><p>Next year, I’ll start again, back at Encom, back where I was always meant to return.</p><p>For tonight, I set down my queue cards and go outside to wonder, watching the moon. The calendar says it won’t be full until tomorrow, but I can hardly tell the difference from here. I only know it shines.</p><p>Remember when I asked you about the moon? About how I felt it keeping watch? Yeah. And perhaps it is silly of me, nonsensical. But I know by now that most nonsense has some element of truth in it, and nothing is truly wasted if it has taught us something good.</p><p>“Happy birthday,” I whisper, smiling up at the moon, and the invisible things beyond. “Happy birthday. And thank you.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thanks to all who read this!</p><p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzNvk80XY9s</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>All italicized stanzas at the beginning are from "The Old Astronomer", an amazing poem written in 1868 by Sarah Williams.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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